There has been some excellent media coverage of the food waste issues facing cultures privileged with overabundance. Last year, National Geographic did an amazing and typically in-depth job of covering food waste (and beyond), highlighting the stories of farmers who were simply leaving tons of produce in the field, since minor imperfections would make it impossible to sell to retail outlets.

But that loss seems almost innocuous when compared with another aspect of food waste, one that John Oliver, in his typical in-depth fashion, recently covered on Last Week Tonight. He dug in to the amount of food that grocery stores simply throw away rather than donate to shelters or others in need, simply because they believe they will be liable in the very unlikely occurrence that someone got sick from the food. Nevermind that no one has ever been sued for this, nor that there are actually laws on the books in many places preventing this type of lawsuit!
Since I started fermenting, I’ve had my own realizations about the type of food waste that was happening at my house. (PS-I wasn’t a totally wasteful maniac before I started fermenting and, conversely, I’m I haven’t become perfectly mindful of every ounce of produce that crosses my fridge threshold since). Fermenting my food, and overcoming the initial fear I felt about eating my home-fermented foods, made me very conscious of my own ability to discern whether or not food was spoiled. I came to realize that I was endowed with the tools for this. My eyes and nose probably evolved as they are, at least in part, to tell me what was safe to eat. It is only in the age of industrialized food that deciding for yourself what is safe to eat has become risky.

I no longer look at “best by” or expiration dates. I definitely used to be the person who looked at the August 8th “Best By” date on my milk on August 9th, smelled it (it smelled fine) and then promptly poured it down the sink, fearing that hidden pathogens might send me on a downward spiral into never-ending illness. Why? Why did I do this? I’ve smelled bad milk before, and frankly, IT TELLS YOU. It evokes disgust (a word which, at its root, literally means “distaste.”) Understanding the process of fermentation has empowered me to better understand when things have gone bad, and it has inspired me to think a little critically about why best by dates are on packaging in the first place (if you’re a manufacturer, perchance you want people to err on the side of buying again sooner rather than later?).

Even this nose is better at detecting the best by date of foods in your fridge than the machines that stamp dates on packaging before it even leaves the production facility!

Besides making me an empowered and critical thinker when it comes to tossing or keeping the contents of my fridge, fermentation has made me actually better at keeping stuff around for longer. Lots of food fermentation is about preservation: from kraut to wine to miso, many fermented foods probably began solely as ways to keep food edible through the fallow season. My biggest food waste problem was always letting produce go bad in the back of the crisper. This made me feel incredibly guilty (especially once I started gardening and saw first hand how much work goes into growing even a single carrot!), so I was very glad to discover a few years back that the vegetables used in vegetable ferments do not need to be prime, glistening specimens, newly plucked from the field. Moldy or slimy vegetables don’t do great in ferments, unfortunately, but the weird, shrunken wrinkly bits of root veg? They can be brought back to superstar status with a simple chop-salt-pack ritual.

In case you’re wondering, this is what mold on fermented vegetables looks like. I did not eat this because of heavy mold coverage. It’s quite disgusting, don’t you think?

I’ve found other little tricks, too: that little bit of juice or wine left in the container gets new life as vinegar, fruit seconds from my local farms make excellent wines and sodas and things like cabbage cores and broccoli stems, that might otherwise be reincarnated only as compost, are made into tangy treats instead.

Again, I am not perfect. And I’m not confusing the small steps that I make at home with the fix for an international problem. But I like the feeling that I’m in charge of my food, and my food waste, though, and that comes from my deep and abiding love of fermentation.

Have any of your food waste habits or practices changed since you began fermenting? Please share in the comments!

The first thing I do when I get to the farmers’ market is scan the stalls for unfamiliar vegetables. Some are similar enough to vegetables I know don’t ferment well that I feel comfortable passing them by. Then there are others, total weirdos I’ve never encountered before (or never noticed before; you know, like when you learn a new word, and suddenly the whole wold is saying that word a ton?). Those I usual try to ferment because I’ve come across some serious pickling gems that way. I don’t always share those here because I know that while most people can buy, say, bell peppers in the grocery store, lemon cucumbers can be harder to come by.

Nope, not cukes! Peeled celtuce. Don’t peel yours, though.

I kinda changed my tune on that recently, though. The nature of new-to-you ferments could well be that finding the ingredients to make them is challenging, and maybe, if you come across some of the fun veg I play with, you’ll buy it because you’ll have an idea of what to do with it. So in that spirit, look for all the normal veg ferments you see here in the summer, but please don’t leave annoyed comments about how you can’t find the vegetable in your area. If you don’t have these ingredients in your area, just think of these posts as inspiration for you to ferment the things you find in your area that I may not ever have had access to.

Today’s special vegetable is celtuce. Celtuce is my new best friend. It’s a “stem lettuce,” which is not a thing I was aware existed before I stumbled across it at the Plowshare Farms market High Street on Market on Saturdays. It was a fortuitous stumble, though, that got me all hyped on cucumber texture with hazelnut flavor. Seriously, that’s what celtuce tastes like. I fermented it with normal, basic starting recipe and I did it plain so I could see how the flavors changed during fermentation.

Slices of celtuce make some tasty, nutty pickles. Some towards the center of my celtuces (celti?) were whole-y. It didn’t affect texture at all.

Fermented Celtuce Pickles

Because I was only able to get my hands on celtuce a couple times, I haven’t tested this “recipe” as thoroughly as I usually would. It’s just a basic pickle, though, and I’ve made enough pickled vegetables of all varieties this way to know that it works. One thing I did differently between batches was to remove the peel (but include it in the jar), but include it during fermentation. It wasn’t necessary, and in fact, the outer area was the sweetest and most delectable part of the vegetable. In a few bites, the inner celtuce was a touch bitter. So leave those peels on, minus and discolored or soft parts. If you get a bit of peel that’s tough when you’re chowing down, consider it extra fiber or discard it.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound (460 g) stem celtuce

2 1/4 teaspoons (16.5 g) kosher salt

1.5 cups (355 ml) filtered water

(If you need more brine, mix 1 tablespoon salt to two cups of water, or a 4.5ish% brine)

HOW-TO

Slice celtuce into 1/4 to 1/2 inch rounds (think cucumber slices). They’ll weep a little milky liquid. It’s NBD. Place celtuce slices into a quart (1 L) jar, but be sure to leave about 1 inch (5 cm) between the top of the vegetables and the rim of the jar.

Stir salt into water until it’s pretty much dissolved. Pour liquid into jar and apply your favorite weight to celtuce. The brine should cover the vegetables, but just barely. The vegetables will release more liquid, and the natural fermenty bubbliness can cause overflow if you overfill the jar.

Cover the jar. If this is your first time at the pickling rodeo, start here for tips on weighting and covering.

I stopped the batches I made at 5 and 6 days, and I thought they were very ready. I know it’s a short ferment, but this is a lettuce stem, after all, so we can’t expect it to stay crispy forever.

Remove the weight, secure the jar lid and store in the fridge. Enjoy within a couple weeks for best texture. If you’re still liking the texture after a longer fridge time, keep on enjoying them!

Celtuce from Plowshare Farms at the High Street on Market Farmers’ Market

Sourdough starter keeps well in the fridge for a really, really long time.

I’m headed off to Alaska for what I’m predicting will be a wonderful vacation. My beloved parents will be married 45 years this week (Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!) and so we’re spending 2 WEEKS with them to celebrate. My last no-work vacation was in 2012, so needless to say, I am extraordinarily excited to be leaving my kitchen, my lovely, new office and my laptop behind.

You know who’s not that excited? My microbes. They’re a little irritated, I’m sensing, that they’re going to be thoroughly neglected, but they’ll survive and be ready and waiting for a hearty meal when I return. There’s more than one way to do this, but elaborate freezing and drying schemes aren’t for me, especially when I’m prepping to be away from my business for two weeks (I’ve got enough to do!). I’ve had other cultures to worry about in the past, but the busy-ness of book-writing shaved my collection down to the stuff my husband and I eat very regularly.

Kombucha SCOBYs: I feed before leaving and do not give a second thought. SCOBYs tolerate the high acid medium they create very well. I’ve left mine for months at room temperature, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED, and that was an inferior SCOBY to the great one I have now. If you’re going for months, make sure to leave your SCOBY in a large container with a lot of brew. The only reason for that is that they’ll eat all the liquid and become enormous and can, theoretically, dry out. I’ve heard stories of this drying out, but I’ve never witnessed it or seen photos, so I take it all with a grain of salt.

Basically what I’m saying is kombucha SCOBYs are extremely resilient and don’t need any fussing. Just let it sit there while you enjoy your sand and sun.

Matsoni Heirloom, Mesophilic Yogurt Culture: This cultured overnight last night and then was moved to the fridge. I know from experience that this very excellent culture will survive just fine for two weeks, but I’ve had other yogurt cultures lose their ability to reculture during the same time period. If you haven’t tested the strength of your culture, it’s best to have someone feed it at 10 days, but most heirloom cultures can survive, in my experience, so don’t stress too much about it.

Bulgarian Thermophilic Heirloom Yogurt Culture (from Cultures for Health): I cultured this today (leaving tomorrow) and I’m crossing my fingers. I haven’t tested this one, but I’m already asking my house-sitters to water my roof garden, I’m not asking them to make yogurt, too. I have high hopes! Dehydrating is an option for all the yogurt cultures I’ve kept, but that’s not something I have time to do before this particular trip.

Milk kefir grains do fine in the fridge while you’re on vacation.

Milk Kefir Grains: Most milk kefir instructions say to store in the fridge and feed at least once a week. I cultured these today, and I’ll be storing them in the fridge for 2 weeks. They’ll be just fine. In fact, they’ll be better than fine; in my experience, milk kefir grains enjoy a little bit of a resting period in the fridge. They tend to multiply more readily after a rest.

I’m also taking a small amount of grains in my 3 oz “liquid” bag, and an empty pint jar, chopstick and fine mesh strainer in my luggage. I have the embarrassing distinction of being unable to swallow pills without a thick liquid (I always use kefir), so I need a bit with me to help me get my supplements down. Yes, yes, judge all you will. It’s completely mental, but whatevs, kefir does the trick for me.

Water Kefir Grains: This is where I’m glad I spent a bit more to get a bit more. I’ve had previous water kefir cultures die with just 10 days in the fridge without a feeding. My Yemoos grains (not sponsored in any way) are approximately 1,000,000 times more resilient to neglect than grains I had previously. While writing my book, I forgot about them/could literally not find 3 minutes to feed them for 2 months and, to my great surprise, they bounced back beautifully after just two feedings. They did smell a bit like beer when I first pulled them out, but honestly, the brew tastes just the same now, with lovely fizz, and healthy, plump grains.

To store these grains for 2 weeks, I feed them normally two days before leaving and let them culture. Once they’re fermented to my liking, I drain the finished water kefir and rinse my grains in filtered, room temperature water. I then put them in a clean jar, and fill it with filtered water. I secure the lid and store them in the fridge during my absence.

Some water kefir grains are very sensitive and need to be fed at least once a week. The grains I now have do fine for a couple weeks in the fridge.

Sourdough starter: My sourdough starter got a final feeding and then moved to the fridge. It will undoubtedly accrue an unsightly blackish liquid in my absence, but once I pour that off and feed it, it will be as good as new when I return. Ready to pump out some truly excellent breads.

Ginger bug: I don’t use my bug that often, so it normally stays in the fridge for 2 weeks at a time between feedings. If you’re doing this length of fridge storage, make sure you have an active bug before you put it in the cool zone. I have had ginger bugs get a little vinegar-y in the fridge. If that happens, unfortunately it’s time to make a new ginger bug, which is pretty easy to do.

My vegetable ferments, booze and and other longer-term ferments are fine, continuing to culture while I’m away. I actually like to start a few batches of pickles or kraut right before I leave town, so that I have a tasty, healthful surprise waiting when I return. How do you care for your culture creatures while you’re out of town?

My matsoni will make it for 2 weeks. I will culture it pretty much the moment I get back, though.

*PS – If you are a weird robber who somehow knows where I live, please note that there are two very protective dogs, one a pit bull, staying at my house with a couple (probably) tough humans. Robbery attempts may be met with chewed off limbs. 🙂

PPS-As you probably figured out, I’m not here! I have posts scheduled for the next two weeks, so definitely stop by for your dose of ferments. I’ll approve and reply to any comments when I’m back from Alaska!

If you aren’t familiar with Dukkah, you’re in for two kinds of treat today. Dukkah is an Egyptian spice blend that I put on just about everything. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with toasted nuts and warm spices, especially toasted cumin. I’m a huge sucker for toasted cumin.

The smell tempts me, but I try not to eat Dukkah with a spoon.

I’ve tried a lot of dukkah recipes, and a couple store bought brands and they’ve almost all worked really nicely in sauerkraut, so feel free to use a store-bought version instead of making your own. If you do want to make your own (way cheaper), though, these two recipes (one from Bon Appetit and one from The Kitchn (I use almonds in the latter recipe)) have done me well.

This is very likely to be the last kraut recipe you see from me for a while. The farmers’ markets are about to open, and we’ll be seeing asparagus, strawberries and rhubarb in no time at all. Enjoy!